Catch the Saint (8 page)

“But the police are trained to handle
things like this, aren’t
they?”

“If it makes you
feel any better, an inspector from Scotland
Yard
was in Pargit’s emporium this afternoon, and I’m sure that
even though he doesn’t know about your brother yet he’s taking a
close and continuing interest in the Leonardo Galleries.
Believe
me, if Scotland Yard hears about the Fawkes caper it
won’t be
a well-kept secret; somebody among
the enemy is almost sure to get on to the fact that you’re being questioned.
Since it’s so im
portant to them to keep anybody from
knowing that your
brother has disappeared, it might be
very unhealthy for him if he
became a hot
potato.”

Julie stood in the
living-room near the front door. She looked almost tearful again, tired and
distraught and discouraged.

“Do you mean that we
just have to wait?”

“No. I mean that in
a case like this I’m a lot more confident in
my own methods than I
am in Scotland Yard’s. Within a few
hours
after I leave here, Pargit isn’t going to have a minute of
privacy. He won’t know it, but I’ll know exactly
what he’s up to.
I don’t like
waiting any more than you do, but if we’re patient for just a little while we
should be able to get a lead on what’s going
on.”

“How will I
know?” Julie asked.

“I’ll be keeping in
close touch with you—which would be a
pleasure even if it
weren’t a necessity. And if you need to contact
me, here’s a number you
can call. Keep trying until I answer. And one thing in particular: Considering
our enemy’s tactics, don’t go anywhere with any stranger, even if he proves to
you
that he’s a policeman or a detective—
especially
if he proves he’s a policeman or a detective. All right?”

“All right.”

Simon opened the door,
stepped outside after a glance up and down the street, and smiled at her.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find your brother. And as soon as I’ve contacted a
couple of unsavoury ac
quaintances of mine and
put them to work, I’d be glad to start
giving
you a personally conducted tour of London. You got off to
a bad start, but you’ll see what a great time a beautiful
girl can
have here.”

“I don’t know how a
beautiful girl would feel, but I’d enjoy
getting
out.”

Simon studied her face
for a moment. “Is that false modesty,
or
do you really not know you’re beautiful?”

“I know I’m not
beautiful.” The Saint shook his head as he turned to go.
“I can see I’m also going to have to give you a
conducted tour
of yourself.”

CHAPTER 6

“Hullo,
Archibald,” said the Saint cheerfully. “How would you
and your creepy confederate like to earn a few dishonest quid?”

The little man was
startled when the Saint slipped as sound
lessly
as an escaped shadow into the wooden chair beside him.
Then his face split
into a grin like a dropped melon, revealing
the
rotting pits of his teeth.

“Simon!” he
said in a hushed voice trained never to be overheard by anyone more than three
inches from his elbow. “Fancy
seeing you ‘ere!
Now you’re so bleedin’ famous, I never thought
you’d
be down in our neighbourhood no more.”

Simon looked around the
dingy pub where he had found the
little man at his accustomed table in the
corner. Even in his
thirstiest moment it
would not have been to his taste. It smelled
of stale beer and an indescribable smokey sourness which had
required many years of aging to attain its
present bouquet.

“I keep busy,”
the Saint said. “I don’t have much time for visit
ing,
but I’ll always go out of my way to find a man who knows his
work. I had a feeling your telephone bill might be a little overdue,
with the usual result, so I came to find you personally.”

“I’m honoured. Let me
stand you a pint.”

“Sorry; it’s my
round, Arch, but let me do it for you and Mr
Wilson.
Where
is
Mr Wilson? I recognise his cigar butt.”
Simon pointed to the glass ashtray in the middle of the scarred
wooden table. “No man on earth can disfigure a cigar
butt as
nauseatingly as Mr Wilson.”

Arch laughed in silent
huffs. Even his merriment would never transmit sound waves to an eavesdropper.

“He’s in the
gents’,” Arch whispered. “What’s the caper? Do
you really ‘ave a job for us?”

Before answering, Simon went to the bar and
returned with
two pint tankards and a pink
gin for himself, and then Mr Wil
son
himself emerged from the toilet and found his way over to
the table. He
had never, except possibly by his parents, been
called anything but Mr Wilson. He was heavily built, with a fat
stomach
and the ponderous air of a retired alderman. His hair
was greying a little, but his bottle-brush moustache was as black
as shoe polish. He belched with surprise as he saw
the Saint at his
table, and there
was a near verbatim repetition of the pleasantries
that Simon and Arch had exchanged.

When Mr Wilson had been
seated, and throats had been suit
ably lubricated
from the pints of Bass, Simon stated his business.

“There’s a man I
want tailed. I don’t want him lost for five
minutes.
I don’t want him to part his hair without my knowing about if. I want to know
who he sees and what he says to them.
It’s that simple. I know you two
gentlemen have the talent it
takes.” He
placed a ten-pound note in front of each man. “And
now you have
some encouragement. There’s another twenty
pounds
apiece owing you at the end of the first twenty-four hours
—or sooner, if you can produce some results before
then. In
fact, if you can get me
what I want there’ll be a generous bonus
anyway.”

Arch was already folding
his ten-pound note into his trousers
pocket.

“What is it you want,
guv’nor?”

“Naturally whatever I
tell you doesn’t go beyond the three of
us,” the Saint
said, with the faintest trace of threat in his cool
voice.

“Naturally,”
said Mr Wilson, and Arch nodded.

“This man you’re to
follow is involved in a snatch. He or some
body
working with him caused a certain person to become
missing.
He’s my only real lead, although he’s working with a
group.
I want him to take us to the missing person, or to take
us to the people he’s working with. Preferably both.”

“Who do we tail?”

Simon did not speak
Pargit’s name. He had already written it, along with the art dealer’s business
and home addresses, on du
plicate pieces of paper.
He gave each of the men a copy, and then pushed a newspaper clipping between
the two of them.

“That’s his picture,
when he was attending some artistic tea
party.
He’s about six feet, speaks phoney Cambridge. I’ve got to
warn you, by the way, that there may be a police tail on
him too.”

“Righto,” Mr
Wilson said, and belched again after draining
the
last of his Bass. “You can leave it to us.”

“When do we
start?” Arch asked.

“You just did,”
the Saint told them.

He was not by nature a
patient man, although he had trained
himself to wait when
necessary. Since both Julie and his two
hired
bloodhounds had his home telephone number, he settled
down
there in Upper Berkeley Mews and spent what remained of
the evening catching up on some reading. For a man with so little
sedentary time, he was an omnivorous reader, and to that and
a retentive memory he owed an encyclopedic knowledge of a
fantastic
range of subjects.

At about eleven o’clock he
telephoned Julie.

“I hope I didn’t wake
you,” he said, letting his voice and the
fact
that Julie didn’t know anybody else in London identify him.

“No. I got in bed a
little while ago, but I can’t sleep. I’m so
worried.”

“I have two dependable
men following our friend. If he’s
working with professional crooks I can’t
risk being spotted, and I
hate wearing a
false beard all day. Anyway, why should I do
that kind of legwork when there are poor devils with beer-bellies to
support who can’t do anything else?”

Julie sounded more
cheerful.

“Then you really
think there’s a chance of finding Adrian?”

“Of course. I’d enjoy
seeing you while we’re waiting, but it
could
be that the ungodly are having you watched, and if they
recognised me with you they’d correctly deduce that you’d been spilling
the proverbial
haricots.
Why don’t you get out tomorrow and see some of
the shops or go to a movie? It’ll give you some
thing
to do to pass the time, and if you are being followed it’ll
help to convince your pals that you’ve swallowed their
story and
are just doing normal things for a
girl who’s just come to Lon
don.”

“If I could pull
myself together I should be out looking for a job,” Julie said tiredly.

“What can you
do?”

“Not much. I’m not a
secretary or anything like that. I could
look
for a job in a shop.”

“Julie, there is only
one occupation for you. You were born to be a model.”

“A what?” she
asked unbelievingly.

“A model. You know, a
photographer’s model, or a fashion
model.”

“Stop teasing me. I
don’t have the looks for it.”

The Saint sighed.

“Julie, it’s always
been a mystery to me how some women can
be so unaware of what
they really look like, but you take the
prize.
I can see that I’ll have to get a second opinion before
you’ll take me seriously.”

“Well, of course I’d
like
to believe you,” Julie said, “but—”

“That’s a start,
anyway. I’ll see if I can get in touch with some
body who can help you
on the job front. Meanwhile, I’d better
not
stay on the phone too long, because my little helpers may get
something on Pargit and want to call me. Give me
a ring about
one o’clock tomorrow
afternoon.”

“I will.”

“Good night,
then.”

“Simon,” she
called quickly.

“Yes?”

Julie didn’t say anything
for a long moment.

“Thank you. Good
night.”

She hung up before he
could reply.

The saint did not have to
wait long for his investment in Arch
and Mr Wilson to pay
off. They had earned their full pay by
eleven
o’clock the next morning. At 11:15 Simon Templar’s
telephone
rang, and the voice of Arch came breathily to his ear.

“We got something for
you,” he said. “You know about Sam
Caffin?”

Simon knew about anybody
who had been making a better-
than-average living from crime for very long.
As soon as a crook
graduated into the upper
income brackets it came to the Saint’s
attention
as surely as the accession of a Texas oil driller to the
millionaire
class reached the records of mail-order purveyors of leather-bound classics and
stock-market advice.

“Black market,” Simon said, referring
to Sam Caffin’s original
short cut to wealth,
assuring Arch that they shared a common
knowledge of Caffin’s identity.

“Now he runs a mob in
Soho,” Arch continued. “What he’s got
to
do with your friend, I don’t know, but Pargit is set to meet
Caffin tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock at Caffin’s flat. One of
Caffin’s boys met Pargit on a corner of King’s Road, and Mr
Wilson got
every word of it.”

“It’s definitely
tomorrow at two?” Simon asked.

“Correct.”

“Where does Caffin live?”

Arch gave the address.

“You’ve earned your
bonus,” said the Saint.”